They agreed that their vantage point was too exposed, that it would be best to get closer and hide amongst the crowd of followers. Search for Intrepid Windrush, so that Pilgrim could make his case for a meeting with Foeless Landwalker. Find out where the prophet was holed up, who was guarding him and who was allowed to see him. Fragrant unpacked her plate camera and set it up on its tripod and took an exposure of the tents and the flowersipper and packed it away again, and they rode down towards the camp, following a track through stony slopes and tumbled boulders.

Heat baked off the ground. Crude versions of the flowersipper had been daubed on boulders flanking the track and on the red rock of a bluff the message Welcome Visitors! was painted in large white glyphs. As Pilgrim and the two women passed beneath it, there was a stir of movement ahead and figures scrambled out of a clump of arthritic trees, blocking the way and levelling crossbows and blunderbusses.

They wore long orange shirts and had grim determined looks. One stepped forward and called out Pilgrim’s name and said that he had been asked to make him and the women of the Invisible College welcome, and Pilgrim knew then that Gentle had beaten them to Foeless Landwalker.

29.

Pilgrim was separated from Poppy and Fragrant and taken to one of the bell tents pitched above the gathering. A guard was posted outside the flap, but the tent was surprisingly comfortable inside – overlapping rugs and nests of cushions on the floor and wicker paddles moving lazily overhead, stirring warm air scented with a pleasant musk. The young person in an orange shirt who delivered a wash bowl and tea and slices of fresh fruit and honeyed cakes either wouldn’t or couldn’t answer any of Pilgrim’s questions. They set everything on a low table and bowed and left.

Hours passed. Feeling strangely calm now that the worst had happened, Pilgrim dozed in a nest of soft cushions, was startled awake when someone pushed through the tent flap. The paddles had stilled and the tent was full of shadows that vanished when the visitor switched on an electric candle and hung it from one of the tent poles. The intruder was Intrepid Windrush, dressed in an orange shirt that hung to his bare calves, a goatskin bag slung over one shoulder and a small leather box with a black glass eye hung from his neck and resting on his chest – a miniature version of Fragrant’s plate camera, Pilgrim realised, as Intrepid aimed it at him.

There was a click, a flash of stark white light.

‘For the record,’ Intrepid said.

‘That must be one of the Sweetwater Collective’s inventions,’ Pilgrim said, trying to blink away a green afterimage.

‘A prototype. Not yet put on sale, but given as a generous gift.’

‘I heard that the Collective might be supporting your master.’